altitude little inferior, being 10,884 feet in height, and ending in a cape, from which a vast barrier of ice extended in an easterly direction, checking all farther progress south. This continuous perpendicular wall of ice, varying in height from 200 to 100 feet, its summit presenting an almost unvarying level outline, we traced for 300 miles, when the pack-ice obstructed all farther progress.”[89] The vertical cliff in question forms a completely solid mass of ice about 1000 feet thick, the greater part of which is below the surface of the sea; there is not the smallest appearance of a fissure throughout its whole extent, and the intensely blue sky beyond indicated plainly the great distance to which the ice-plains reach southward. Gigantic icicles hang from every projecting point of the icy cliff, showing that it sometimes thaws in these latitudes, although in the month of February, which corresponds with August in England, Fahrenheit’s thermometer did not rise above 14° at noon. In the North Polar Ocean, on the contrary, streams of water flow from every iceberg during the summer. The whole of this country is beyond the pale of vegetation: no moss, not even a lichen, covers the barren soil where everlasting winter reigns. Parry’s Mountains, a lofty range, stretching south from Mount Terror to the 79th parallel, is the most southern land yet discovered. The South Magnetic Pole, one of the objects of the expedition, is situate in Victoria Land, in 75° 5ʹ S. lat., and 154° 8ʹ E. long., according to Sir James C. Ross’s observations.